The University of California's California
Digital Library buys electronic journal subscriptions collectively
for all nine University of California campuses. Their Big Deal
with
Elsevier was up for renewal this year. Negotiations with Elsevier
were long and difficult. This summer,
UC negotiators were pessimistic about the chances of getting
reasonable
terms from Elsevier and were "prepared to walk." The
Chancellors
at the individual campuses also showed some backbone. They announced
that
if the joint agreement failed, they would not allow individual
libraries
in the UC system to strike separate deals with Elsevier. In the
end
a deal was reached, as reported by the Library
Journal.

Hard bargaining paid off. The new contract is much
better than what was originally offered. The library gained two
useful
concessions. 1) The amount of money paid to Elsevier for
electronic
access will be reduced from $8 million in 2003 to $7.3
million
in 2004. 2) The UC libraries will also drastically reduce
their
holdings of paper editions of Elsevier journals, cutting their spending
on paper journals from $2.3 million in 2003 to $400,000 in 2004.
Thus in total, the UC will spend about 25% less on Elsevier journals in
2004 than they did in 2003.

Even at these reduced prices, the University of California has
no reason to be content. The deal is not that
good.
The negotiators have avoided a price increase for Elsevier journals,
but
by any reasonable measure, the university is still being taken to the
cleaners.
Elsevier journals still cost several times as much per page as
nonprofit
journals. In their letter to the faculty explaining
the
outcome or the Elsevier negotiations, library administrators inform us
that the "economics of scholarly journals publishing
are incontrovertibly unsustainable." Can this polysyllabic
thunder
means that the CDL is planning to drive a harder bargain in the
future?
One can hope...